


always in this twilight

by NoirSongbird



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alpha Keith (Voltron), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Happy Ending, M/M, Minor Character Death, Omega Shiro (Voltron), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-S3 Divergent, Slow Burn, background hunk/pidge
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-07-12 00:13:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15983483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoirSongbird/pseuds/NoirSongbird
Summary: Shiro had expected his reunion with his team - withKeith- after spending months on the far side of the universe with a rebel group to be happy. He was not expecting to have to fight his own clone, or for Keith to have to kill that clone to save them all. Worse, now Keith seems strangely distant - and Shiro doesn't know how to fix that. But he'll find a way. He needs Keith at his side far too much to let him go.





	always in this twilight

**Author's Note:**

> This is a rewritten, updated version of the original fic, first posted in August 2017 right after season 3 dropped! Looking back, it's kind of funny what this fic sort of accidentally predicted? But I've bene wanting to make some changes for a while, there were just so many things in the way *sobs*
> 
> Ideally I'll be updating weekly or biweekly for the first seven chapters, until I run out of prewritten material! At that point, uh. We'll see? 8D;;

Shiro hated infiltration missions. Poking around Galra bases looking for information was a critical, necessary piece of the work the rebel group he’d landed with did, but that didn’t mean he had to  _ like  _ it. It felt far too much like risking recapture, and sure, he’d been away from Voltron long enough that he hoped they had a new Black Paladin—and Shiro desperately hoped it was Keith, because he knew that Keith was the best option—but that didn’t mean he was  _ eager  _ to chance falling back into Galra hands.

It was quiet, which it was supposed to be—this was a small communications relay base, little more than a forwarding station. It didn’t  _ need _ a large staff; just enough to ensure the equipment kept working. Shiro was pretty sure everyone stationed here had to hate it, because flipping switches was about as far from military glory as possible.

But that was the thing: sure, the station might be all about flipping switches and maintaining uplinks, but because of what it was and where it was, tens of thousands of messages passed through this one little no-account relay station every quintant. Tens of thousands of messages that the rebels could intercept, to make it easier for Matt to work on cracking their codes.

And maybe, if they were lucky, they would be able to include one more message, hidden in among those tens of thousands, that could be sent to Voltron. As much as Shiro knew he was doing good work with the rebels, he wanted to be back with Voltron _.  _ He wanted to see his team—see  _ Keith _ —again. He missed Keith’s scent of woodsmoke and desert rain and safety and  _ home.  _

It was telling, Shiro supposed, that he was so attached to the scent of an alpha that wasn’t even  _ his  _ alpha. Not that it mattered, when he was on the other side of the universe from Keith with no reason to expect to see him any time soon. 

He let out a breath, and gave Matt a brief nod, letting him know that they were clear to move forward. The command center wasn’t far, though they’d have to be quick when they got there. The idea was to slip in, take out whoever was in the room, and implant a program that would allow them to clone the transmission equipment, allowing Matt to see all the messages running through the station from a safe distance away. It would also let them slide in their own, and because it would be running copied Galra encryption codes, it shouldn't raise any eyebrows. At least, that was how Shiro understood it—Matt was far better at the technical aspects of all of it, and Shiro considered himself very lucky that of all the spots in the universe the Black Lion could have sent him to save him from Zarkon’s attack, she’d managed to pinpoint the tiny communications base Matt had been working on at the time. 

The closer they got to the actual command center, though, the more concerned Shiro got. He slipped over next to Matt, frowning. 

“Shouldn’t there be more sentries?” he asked. Matt glanced around, and then gave a brief nod.

“I knew this place was understaffed, but this is something else. You don’t think it’s….a trap?” he mused out loud.

“How? The list of people who knew we were coming is pretty short,” Shiro pointed out. Matt huffed.

“Guess we gotta keep going and find out,” he said. Shiro gave a brief nod. It wasn’t like there were many other options.

It didn’t exactly take long to find an answer to why the station seemed so deserted.

When they got to the command center, Shiro tried the door, and frowned when he found it slightly ajar. That…felt like it might not be a good sign. He pushed it open a little more, and leaned around the doorframe to get a look in, and his heart stopped. 

Voltron was there.

He recognized his team immediately, even with one more on it. Someone was wearing pink armor—Allura, maybe? It sort of looked like her physique—and there was someone in black who was too tall and bulky to be Keith, but otherwise everyone seemed to be in the same colors. They must have opted not to change, no matter what shuffling had happened.

Of all the comm relay stations in all the corners of all the galaxies in the universe, Voltron had come to  _ this one. _

He could have waited. Should have, probably. Should have said something to Matt. 

He didn’t.

He pushed the door the rest of the way open, and when five Paladins spun towards him with their bayards drawn, he put his hands up.

“Hey, whoa, hold on,” he said, and he watched Keith’s eyes widen slightly and his bayard lower a little even before he want to remove his masked helmet. As he took it off, he shook out his hair, grown long enough to be pulled into a high ponytail in the months he’d been away. 

“....Shiro?” Keith asked. He sounded shocked, and a little tremulous, like he couldn’t quite believe it. He almost took a step forward, but hesitated, and he looked so utterly  _ stricken— _ Shiro wanted to run over and pull him into his arms and kiss him until he couldn’t breathe, but this...probably wasn’t the time. Not in front of Matt and the whole team, and definitely not when Keith looked so painfully unsure _. _

“Hey, Keith,” Shiro said, instead of any of the other things he was thinking about doing. 

“Hi, I’m here too,” Matt said, with heavy sarcasm, and Pidge made a tiny, choked noise, shoving past a very stunned-looking Lance to give her brother a flying hug.

“Man, what the quiznak,” Lance said, which made Shiro tear his eyes away from Keith’s to look at the rest of the team. It was in fact Allura in pink, and all of them, except Pidge who was still distinctly occupied with Matt, were giving him the same look of horror and confusion as Keith. 

Except the stranger in black armor, who hadn’t moved. Shiro narrowed his eyes slightly, noting the tension in the stranger’s stance.

“Well,” the stranger said, in a voice that made Shiro’s skin crawl, because it was agonizing familiar, “one of us is gonna have to change.”

He turned, and Shiro understood.

Under the black helmet was  _ his face.  _ He was looking at  _ himself. _

“Oh what the hell,” Matt said, and he moved protectively in front of Pidge.

“So, uh,” Lance said, “I’m just gonna say what everybody’s thinking and put out there that this looks like the start of a  _ really good  _ dream—”

“ _ Lance!”  _ Allura said, scandalized, at the same time Keith growled “ _ Lance,”  _ in a thoroughly threatening tone. 

“I don’t think anybody was thinking that, actually,” Hunk said, and Lance put his hands up in surrender.

“Okay, okay, fine, just me,” Lance said, and Shiro wanted to laugh, because  _ God  _ he’d missed them all so much it  _ hurt,  _ but he couldn’t afford to, not when the other-him was staring at him in a way that wasn’t  _ quite  _ threatening but definitely wasn’t  _ not. _

“Who are you,” the stranger with his face asked, finally, and Shiro frowned.

“I’m Takashi Shirogane,” he said, and he straightened his back and squared his shoulders, crossing his arms in front of his chest. He wasn’t an alpha, with command and intimidation in his genes, but he could make do. “I’ve been with a rebel group on the outskirts of the Empire since the battle with Zarkon. Black teleported me out of her cockpit, and I wound up on the signalling station Matt was manning. I’ve been working with them since, and we were hoping that if we took control of this place we might be able to send a message to Voltron. To you.” 

“It’s true,” Matt confirmed. “Shiro just….materialized, like something out of  _ Star Trek. _ I still kinda don’t believe it.” 

“But…” The other-him looked confused, and then he pulled off his helmet and reached up, pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead, wincing like he was in pain. “No, you can’t be— _ I’m  _ Takashi Shirogane—” he squeezed his eyes shut and shuddered, full body, and Keith turned and moved over to him.

“Shiro?” he asked, reaching out— 

And the other Shiro’s eyes opened, and they were pure gold, edge to edge, with the bright glow of quintessence lighting them mad.

He slammed his Galra arm into Keith, sending him flying and slamming into the wall.

Matt leapt forward with a yell of rage, but the clone fought with all the ferocity that had made Shiro the Galra arena’s Champion and none of the hesitation that had nearly gotten him killed. 

Matt was thrown aside, and Hunk went down next when he moved to get between the clone and Keith, legs swept out from under him. Pidge let out a furious snarl, a sound bigger than it seemed possible for her tiny body to produce, and charged in, but the clone dodged her strike and drove a knee into her back, sending her crashing to the ground, hard. 

Allura snapped out her whiplike bayard and caught his flesh arm with it, but the clone grinned and grabbed it, pulling it taut and bringing the Galra hand down further up the line to sever it. That sent Allura off her feet, and he returned his attention to the Paladins closer to him.

The clone drew back his arm, hovering over Hunk, who was reaching towards his bayard, and Shiro ran forward, desperate to stop him, but a shot from Lance’s rifle struck the clone in the shoulder and drew his attention.

“Get your hands off them!” Lance yelled, fury in every line of his body. The clone ran towards him, and Shiro slid in and intercepted, catching a strike from the Galra arm with his own.

“Get out of my way,” the clone snarled.

“No,” Shiro growled. He held it off, hand to hand, for a while, and Lance fired shots whenever there was an opening, but the clone was quick, and crafty, and Shiro took a punch to the solar plexus from the regular arm while his attention was on the Galra one.  _ ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid,’  _ he thought, as he hit his knees.

“Oh, shit,” Lance said, in slow realization, as the clone turned its full attention on him.

Keith had managed to get back on his feet, but when Shiro glanced over at him, he was standing frozen, staring with wide, horrified eyes on the clone as it advanced on Lance, who was backing up as quickly as he could manage, until he bumped into a control console and yelped.

“Keith,” Shiro tried to get his attention, but he didn’t even turn to acknowledge him. “ _ Keith!” _ He tried again, as the clone wrapped a hand around Lance’s neck and lifted him up off his feet. Lance kicked and struggled, but the clone tossed him aside like a ragdoll, and he hit the wall and went limp.

Everyone else dispatched, the clone turned on Keith.

The clone advanced on him and brought back his arm, formed into a blade, and Shiro screamed out a desperate  _ “No!”  _ as he struggled to his feet to try and intervene. Whatever it took, if he had to take the hit himself, he would, but he was  _ not  _ going to lose Keith, not so soon after finding him again— 

The clone hesitated.

(If he had Shiro’s memories, if he had even a  _ hint  _ of Shiro’s feelings, Shiro understood why.)

In that suspended moment of hesitation, finally, Keith unfroze.

He brought the black bayard up, and Shiro watched it bloom into a sword, stabbed straight through the clone’s chest, and he swore he saw the clone’s lips move before he went limp, but whatever he said was so quiet as to be completely inaudible to anyone other than Keith. 

Keith was still again, for a moment, and then he dropped the bayard and fell to his knees, burying his face in his hands, and let out the most profoundly agonizing scream Shiro had ever heard in his life. 

Shiro staggered over to Keith and went back down on his knees, pulling Keith into his arms. Keith wailed, again, and buried his face in Shiro’s chest, sobbing desperately. Shiro buried his face in Keith’s hair, and he couldn’t help but notice that something wasn’t quite right about Keith’s scent, but h filed it away for later. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter—not when Keith was in so much pain.

“I’m sorry,” Keith gasped. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“Shh,” Shiro said, gently. “It’s okay. I’ve got you. I’m here.” 

Keith curled up against him and hung on like he never intended to let go, and Shiro could have stayed like that for as long as it took for Keith to be okay. They didn’t have that luxury, but Shiro could hold Keith while the other Paladins helped each other up, while Pidge scrambled over to Hunk and the two of them shared a long, lingering press of foreheads, and while Matt did what they’d actually come to do, cloning the station’s transmissions. Through it all, Keith’s sobs quieted, but he still clung to Shiro like Shiro was his only lifeline left.

“We have to go,” Allura said, finally, reaching down and resting a hand on Shiro’s shoulder. He nodded, and gently nudged Keith. He felt Keith take a deep, shuddering breath, and then he slowly disentangled himself from Shiro’s arms and stood, pulling Shiro up with him. His face was a tense, cold mask, something Shiro had never seen before—Keith was many things, but  _ unemotional  _ had never been one of them.  

“Let’s get back to the castleship,” he said, and Shiro felt something lurch in his chest. This wasn’t right. 

Worse, there was nothing he could do to fix it.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on tumblr at [noirsongbird!](http://noirsongbird.tumblr.com)


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